Sunday, May 29, 2011

brown sugar

The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World hit the top of the charts with their sweet and scandalous first single on Rolling Stones Records. They had recorded the song in December of 1969; but it wasn't released until May of 1971 due to legal problems with manager Allen Klein. They debuted the song live at the concert in Altamonte. Mick wrote the song inspired by both Marsha Hunt, the mother of his first child, and Claudia Lennear, one of the Ikettes. He decribes the song as a raw mishmash of nasty subjects, mixing drugs, slavery, sado-mascochism, and oral sex. It became the opening track on their classic 'Sticky Fingers' album.

"I wrote that song in Australia in the middle of a field. They were really odd circumstances. I was doing this movie, “Ned Kelly,” and my hand had got really damaged in this action sequence. So stupid. I was trying to rehabilitate my hand and had this new kind of electric guitar, and I was playing in the middle of the outback and wrote this tune. But why it works? I mean, it’s a good groove and all that. I mean, the groove is slightly similar to Freddy Cannon, this rather obscure ‘50s rock performer – Tallahassee Lassie or something. Do you remember this? “She’s down in F-L-A.” Anyway, the groove of that – boom-boom-boom-boom-boom – is “going to a go-go” or whatever, but that’s the groove."